It sounds like there's real, serious problems with it, but nothing in the article comes close to justifying the hyperbolic title.
Problems with MacBook butterfly switch keyboards
51–60 of 291 posts
Re: Problems with MacBook butterfly switch keyboards
#52My work gave me one of the 2016 15" MBPs as my main computer, and the keyboard is horrible. My V key double-presses about half the time, and the rest of the keys are really hard to press down all the way. Some of the keys make a weird metal rattle when I press them. Typing on that wretched keyboard for more than an hour or so literally bruises my fingers. Since I do most of my day-to-day work at a dock with an extern…
There is a functional Escape key. It's right there in the top left corner. I use it hundreds of times a day. It's definitely not as nice as a dedicated key but you get used to it. And if you want permanent function keys then just go to the Keyboard control panel and enable it.
stop making excuses for Apple's dumb decisions. With physical buttons I can find a key by feel just by running my fingers across the top row. Good luck accurately hitting any button on that stupid little touch screen.
Re: Problems with MacBook butterfly switch keyboards
#53I too have found this keyboard it to be a disaster. I made the mistake of buying two MacBooks as soon as the first 12" model was released, one for me and one for my wife, and my wife's keyboard had so many problems we took it in to Apple. All they could do was offered to swap out the keyboard for a mere $400. My wife refused, and the problem mysteriously solved itself. Meanwhile, mine "works", but the short key trave…
Where's a good place to find new old stock MacBooks?
Re: Problems with MacBook butterfly switch keyboards
#54The best kind of controversial Apple design is one that people grumble about because it's ahead of its time, but which ultimately replaces one way of doing things with another that's better for most use cases. See: ditching floppies and adopting USB on the first iMac. The worst kind of controversial Apple design is one that people grumble about because it's aesthetically pleasing but actually makes the product less u…
I understand what you are getting at, but in reality not everyone has issues with the new design, and I’m as yet unclear whether it’s a vocal minority who do, or a more widespread thing.
Personally, I really like my new 15” Pro. I’m in favour of anything which can make it thinner and lighter, to a point, as I like to be able to carry it around easily, while still having a large screen. The design looks beautiful.
In regard to the specific points you raised:
- I prefer the keyboard to the old one. It feels satisfying to type on in my opinion. The only thing I would change is the noise of the keys, it’s hard to type quietly.
- The touch bar isn’t perfect but I think it’s a worthwhile effort, as most people (me included, and I’m a developer) rarely use the function keys for anything aside from the media functions you mention, mainly because it’s hard to remember what they’ll do and having shortcuts visible there is a good idea.
However, the lack of tactile feedback and visibility in sunlight is an issue. I’d rather they’d gone with distinct keys with e-ink displays or similar, but like I say, to me the Fn keys are no great loss (I’ve been remapping escape to caps lock for years anyway!)
- I find the new port set up much more flexible and have had no problems using my old USB devices with adapters or via a hub. I did find the article about USB-C interesting though - hopefully the industry can sort this out in due time.
I don’t make these points to say you’re wrong, but just to show that not everyone agrees that all these design choices are bad.
Re: Problems with MacBook butterfly switch keyboards
#55Based on the title I assumed that this person was going to be complaining about joint damage due to the low key travel. This keyboard on my 12" MacBook is so bad that between having to get the top case replaced to fix broken keys (when as stated in the article, careful blowing didn't work and trying to replace the keys caused them to break) and my fingers feeing like they have aged many years from the poor ergonomics…
My experience is eerily similar. I bought the 11" Air the second it came out but gave it away after purchasing the 12" MacBook. Talk about buyer's remorse.
Re: Problems with MacBook butterfly switch keyboards
#56My work gave me one of the 2016 15" MBPs as my main computer, and the keyboard is horrible. My V key double-presses about half the time, and the rest of the keys are really hard to press down all the way. Some of the keys make a weird metal rattle when I press them. Typing on that wretched keyboard for more than an hour or so literally bruises my fingers. Since I do most of my day-to-day work at a dock with an extern…
I completely identify with your anger
Re: Problems with MacBook butterfly switch keyboards
#57Earlier quoted context omitted.
There is a functional Escape key. It's right there in the top left corner. I use it hundreds of times a day. It's definitely not as nice as a dedicated key but you get used to it. And if you want permanent function keys then just go to the Keyboard control panel and enable it.
stop making excuses for Apple's dumb decisions. With physical buttons I can find a key by feel just by running my fingers across the top row. Good luck accurately hitting any button on that stupid little touch screen.
The touch bar finally forced me to remap Caps Lock to Escape. It's much easier to hit on my computer (just don't ask me to use yours).
Re: Problems with MacBook butterfly switch keyboards
#58Earlier quoted context omitted.
Hmm, it might be because we run Windows on the macbooks, but you're right -- maybe it didn't fully shut down. Even sleep is pretty disruptive; it takes my machine ~30s of playing-dead before it pops back, and I'm booted from the VPN and all my connections. I run into this accidental-coffee-break every now and then. We bought a USB keyboard + mouse for the candidates.
Do you realise how ridiculous you sound ? You're blaming a Mac for Windows OS behaviour. On Mac OS pressing the power button does nothing, it takes seconds to come back from sleep and it never drops VPN unless you are going to sleep for hours.
As I understood it the part where you hit the power button when you don't want is the root of the problem. The horrible Mac keyboard is accidentally also the topic here.
Re: Problems with MacBook butterfly switch keyboards
#59I actually really like my 2017 MBP's keyboard. There isn't much key travel, but the keys do have a very satisfying "click." I prefer it over older apple keyboards. Keys do have issues weekly or so, but that's resolved by hitting the key a bunch; it's an inconvenience, but certainly not a dealbreaker.
> Keys do have issues weekly or so, but that's resolved by hitting the key a bunch I've been considering moving to a 12 MacBook but hearing stuff like this scares me
Yeah. I'm just shocked by how much people are willing to just deal with as if it is normal or something. I have a friend who recently told me they are surprised as how much I hate my 12" MacBook as they are loving theirs... and then a little later they tell me that the O key on their keyboard doesn't work half the time and just... I just don't even... wtf. I swear all the people who love these new computers must just have extremely low standards or something: you shouldn't have to mess around with your computer every week to fix some stupid keyboard issue that wouldn't exist if the laptop was a mere millimeter thicker.
Re: Problems with MacBook butterfly switch keyboards
#60Once bash on windows gets sufficiently close to my needs and I am able to swap alt with ctrl, I will little resistance for going from OS X to windows.
linux as daily driver is honestly good, from the bottom of my heart (I recommend xfce)